


for those who live and die by astronomy

by feminist14er



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Ignores Season 4, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 10:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13029219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feminist14er/pseuds/feminist14er
Summary: clarke had exactly zero intention of finding an abandoned baby while they were trying to shut down the reactors, but here they are.





	for those who live and die by astronomy

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all. Y'ALL. I have been writing this since the Season Three finale. THAT WAS ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO. But I'm pleased with how it turned out, so I guess it was worth the wait?
> 
> Title from Andrew Bird

They’ve been wandering all over the remnants of the East Coast for weeks now; it’s not wandering _exactly_ , since they had maps of the location of the nuclear reactors, but – it’s pretty close to wandering. The terrain is nothing like what’s on the maps they have, and it’s anyone’s guess why there’s suddenly a desert in the middle of what used to be New York City, but it’s definitely a hurry-up-and-save-the-world sort of situation, and they’re honestly all too tired to think much about it.

They took the rover as far as they could, but honestly, after a point, they had to go on foot, and it’s a good thing that Raven sent them with instructions and didn’t plan to come with them, because she’d be fucking miserable.

What’s surprising, honestly, is that – it’s almost _fun_. It’s not, really, because they’ve all split up _again_ , but then again, Miller and Bryan are with Clarke and Bellamy, and it’s not like Clarke really knew Bryan that well on the Ark, but he’s a pretty entertaining guy, and watching Miller be happy, be really happy and not be hiding it from anyone? That’s worth a lot. And as fucked up as everything is, as fucked up as everything _has been_ , Miller doesn’t really seem to begrudge Clarke anything, and she and Bellamy are making a genuine effort to do what they said they wanted to do and get past everything.

So yeah, things aren’t great. They’re still trying to stop the meltdown of as many nuclear reactors as they can, and she’s still split up from some other people she really cares about (people she’s _worried about_ , to be honest, and Octavia is first on that list. As much as she’s glad that Bellamy is getting a break from his sister, Clarke also worries about Octavia), but at night they make a fire and Miller pretends to be scary, and it’s not that bad, curling up at night and listening to first watch talk slow and quiet, seeing the stars. She’s still traveling, still moving; she’s just not alone anymore, and it’s soothing instead of suffocating.

They’re making pretty good time, all things considered; they’ve shut down two reactors so far, and with Raven’s instructions, it’s turned out to be mercifully easy. Shutting down the reactors isn’t the hard part – finding them is. They’ve had help from Roan and some of his people, but even still, the Grounders haven’t exactly chosen to settle near reactors. Their memory is too long, and it hasn’t been enough time for people to want to live downwind of a reactor any time soon.

When they finish shutting down the second reactor on their list, they trudge slowly back to the rover (and thank god it runs on solar, Clarke thinks, because otherwise they’d be well and truly fucked. There’s no gas _anywhere_ , and she can’t even begin to imagine how they would manage this task without the rover) and begin their drive toward the third reactor.

Each team took three to four reactors, but they can only really manage the ones on the eastern seaboard; they all know there are some that might still be going out in the West, but it’s a tough sell for anyone to drive out there considering they have no idea who’s out there and what it’s like these days. While they’re away, Raven’s working on hacking into the old computer systems to try and manually shut things down, but it’s not a sure thing, and it weighs on all of them as they drive around. When they’re hiking, they’re all too tired to think about much, but when they drive, all bets are off.

They don’t talk much at night, and Clarke thinks this might be the reason why: they’re all privately worried that the end of the world is coming (again), and they’re trying not to alarm everyone else in the group. And if, just sometimes, Clarke wakes up when Bellamy comes back from watch or vice versa, and they roll into each other – it has nothing to do with impending doom, and everything to do with needing more warmth as winter approaches.

\--

When they wake up in the morning to abandon the rover for the third time and continue on foot, Clarke is greeted with the same tune from Bryan, they one he keeps humming under his breath without noticing, and it’s a song they all learned on the Ark, a relic of centuries gone by, before they had any idea what it felt like to pull the ticks out of your skin after hiking through the woods for a full day, before they knew the strain in their muscles of going over hills (and really, don’t even get her started on going _through_ the rivers, since all bridges seem to be too dilapidated to bear them safely across).

She knows Bryan can’t help it, probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but it’s early enough and cold enough (and she’s grumpy enough) that before she even thinks about it, she’s saying “Shut _up_ , Bryan!” exasperatedly. When she turns, startled, it’s to see the Bellamy is standing to her right, hands on his hips, and they’ve said it in unison.

That’s enough to break the tension, and they’re all laughing, bent over at the waist, laughing harder than necessary, harder than they have in a long time, and yeah. Hurry up and save the world. No time for humor.

\--

On their fourth or so day walking toward (hopefully toward) the reactor, Clarke peels off to pee. She doesn’t travel far from the group, and she knows Bellamy is waiting for her return, back turned while Bryan and Miller continue on ahead, but then she hears this _noise_ , and she knows she should call for Bellamy, shouldn’t go after it (it’s never gone well for her, going after strange noises), but it sounds like a helpless noise, and she’s got her gun and a knife, and she’ll be fine.

She walks towards it quietly, tiptoeing around (and she might have been clumsy when they landed, but three months on her own taught her some stealth, stealth she needed to survive). The sound comes and goes, and she’s not totally sure she’s getting closer until she looks a couple of feet to her left and sees a bundle of cloth writhing around.

She stops for a minute, debating whether she wants to get closer. It still seems like it could be a trap, but it’s just as likely that it’s a rabbit that’s gotten tangled, and if that gives them some fresh meat for dinner, they’d all be glad of that. She moves forward quietly again, knife out and ready to plunge into the rabbit if she’s quick enough when she realizes – it’s not an animal. It’s a baby.

“Oookay then,” she says out of sheer surprise. She sheaths her knife, glad she didn’t accidentally kill a child in her haste and sits down next to the baby. It’s still flailing around a little bit, waving its arms too and fro, and she doesn’t _see_ any obvious deformities, any reason the kid would be abandoned, but she hasn’t touched it yet (doesn’t really _want to_ , honestly. Babies are not a thing she’s comfortable with, either in space or on the ground), but she’s certainly not going to leave it here, so. She looks at it a little desperately, and when it waves its hands in front of its face, she gives it her finger and it latches on.

“So you’ve got a good grip, then,” she says, trying to pry her finger away. When she gets it back, the baby screws up its face and lets loose a _tremendous_ wail.

“Okay, okay!’ Clarke says, hurrying to give it something to grip. “Here’s the deal: I have to pee. When I’m done peeing, I’ll take you to Bellamy, and you can hold onto his fingers as much as you want.”

The baby is still crying, and Clarke gives up rationalizing with it, pees, and picks it up. She’s had enough training to know how to hold babies, but it doesn’t feel comfortable or easy, not like everyone claims it does. It doesn’t make sense to cradle it like an infant, although it can’t be older than a few months, so she wraps the blankets around it and hoists it on her hip, jostling it as she walks back. The baby quiets as soon as it rests its head on her shoulder, and Clarke says, “Don’t get comfortable. There’s only one person in this group who knows babies, and it definitely isn’t me.”

When she walks out of the woods and back into the clearing, Bellamy has his hands on his hips. “What the hell Clarke? What took so – oh.” His eyes widen when they land on the bundle of cloth she’s carrying, and he looks at her for just a minute before shaking his head. “No, nope, no. Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

She holds it out to him. “It’s exactly what you think it is, and you’re the only one with experience with babies, so here you go.” The baby starts waving its fists again, and its cries start to escalate as Bellamy reaches out to take it.

He bounces it slightly as he looks at her. “What are we going to do with a _baby_ , Clarke? We’re trying to shut down nuclear reactors, we’re days from camp! We can’t even _feed_ a baby!”

She glares at him. “Do you want me to put it back where I found it? Because it looked like it was abandoned to me, and I know you’re not that heartless.”

The baby keeps crying, its wails getting louder even as Bellamy hushes it and pets the back of its head. “I mean – no? I don’t want to abandon a baby. But what are we going to do with it?”

Clarke shrugs. “I guess we’re taking it with us. And we’re going to have to figure out something for food for it, because it should probably still be on milk.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “Fuck – milk. We’re nowhere near a Grounder village, right? We can’t even get goats’ milk?”

“Nope. And even if we were, it could be one of their kids that we just picked up. We can’t risk them deciding to come after us to punish us for saving their kid." 

Bellamy shakes his head again. “Clarke, it’s not settling down. What did you do last time?”

Clarke looks at him, surprised. “Basically what you’re doing. I walked it?” she says, doubt coloring her tone.

“Well, first of all, it’s not a dog, but – “ He huffs. “Let’s keep going. We have to catch up with Bryan and Miller anyway,” he says, and sets off through the clearing.

The problem is – the baby doesn’t stop crying. And it’s clear from the set of Bellamy’s shoulders that he’s not used to failing like this, and that he’s worried about attracting attention. Clarke doesn’t want to state the obvious (and she really doesn’t want to assume responsibility for the baby), but the kid could need feeding or changing, or – whatever else babies need.

Finally, Bellamy turns around to look at her. “You have to take it back, Clarke. It seemed fine with you.” 

“But you’re the one with baby experience!” she says, putting her hands in the air. “I think this is the second time I’ve held a baby in my entire life. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

“Well,” he says gruffly, pushing the baby at her. “Do what you did last time, because it clearly responds better to you.”

Clarke reaches out tentatively and grasps the baby under the armpits. She settles it back against her chest, head on her shoulder (just like Bellamy had), and its cries instantly quiet. It’s still whimpering, but she can practically feel the exhaustion in the kid’s body as she’s holding it, and – yeah, okay, apparently she’s carrying a baby around for the rest of the day.

She looks at Bellamy helplessly, and she can see him trying to hide his grin. When he meets her eyes, he says, “You’re a natural,” and his voice is still gruff, but his eyes are warm and fond, and it sends warmth through Clarke’s body, the thought of Bellamy watching her with a kid.

She ducks her head. “We still need to catch up with Miller and Bryan,” she says, and starts moving.

It isn’t long before the baby is asleep, taking tiny deep breaths, its chest expanding and contracting against Clarke’s, and she can feel herself tiring under the extra weight, between her pack and the weight of the baby, but she’s reluctant to hand the baby back off to Bellamy in case it starts crying again.

When they finally catch up with Miller and Bryan, it takes Miller all of a second to recognize that Clarke is in fact carrying a baby, and the fleeting expressions on his face would be comical if she weren’t so tired. She holds up the hand she’s been using to cradle the baby’s head. “Don’t,” she says. “Just – don’t even start.”

Miller looks at Bellamy, who shrugs, and Clarke can see Bryan fighting to contain his laughter at the level of confusion on his partner’s face.

“We can talk later,” she says. “But it’s asleep and we want to keep it that way.”

Miller nods, and he and Bryan take off again, Bellamy and Clarke following closely behind. Clarke starts to lag quickly, however, exhaustion seeping through her bones. When Bellamy looks back at her, she manages a smile for him, but he signals to Miller and Bryan to hold up.

“Here,” he says, dropping his pack. “If we can’t help you carry the baby, we’ll help you carry what’s in your pack.”

“It’s fine, Bellamy,” she protests. “I’ll just go a little slower.” 

“Clarke, I don’t want you at the back of the pack with the baby. That’s not safe,” he says, and his tone brooks no argument. She rolls her eyes at him, but with Bryan’s help, she gets her pack off without putting the baby down, and the weight off her back does feel better. The three of them redistribute the weight of her pack, and she’s not carrying _nothing_ , but she’s carrying less. 

“I still can’t believe I’m stuck carrying the baby,” she mutters as Bellamy loads her pack back onto her back. “It’s so – ugh,” she says, trying to express her level of disgust at the heteronormativity of it all.

Bellamy grins sharply at her. “I told you you’re a natural,” he teases, and she flips him off with her free hand before walking off.

\--

They keep moving for another couple of hours, and they’ve all slowed down to accommodate Clarke and the baby, since even with less weight, carrying the baby is _cumbersome_ and awkward, and how women did this for centuries is entirely a mystery to Clarke. Fuck, their ancestors literally moved constantly with women carrying children, and all she knows is that her back is killing her, and she’s too terrified to move to shift the baby’s weight in her arms, so the fingers in one of her hands have fallen asleep. Still, the baby sleeps, and that’s all she really wants, is for the baby to sleep until they can address the situation a little bit better.

Finally, as the sun starts to go down, Bellamy calls for a halt and helps Clarke get her pack off. When she looks down, the baby is blinking blearily up at her, and the slightest crease between its eyes is the only sign she has that it might be fussy. Otherwise, it rests quietly in her arms, and she can’t really complain about that.

As she and Bellamy start talking over their options, Miller and Bryan start a fire.

“What are we going to feed it?” Clarke asks, biting her lip. She’s sitting on the ground, her pack supporting her back, and she’s cradling the baby now, letting it suck on a cloth soaked in water. The baby seems fine for now, but she can’t get over the feeling that it’s too young to be away from its mother’s milk, and even if it were eating solids, they don’t really have anything bland enough for it to eat.

Bellamy looks at the baby, then looks back at her. “I think we have to find someone who has a goat or a cow,” he says. He holds up a hand to forestall her argument. “I know that it’s dangerous to ask for that, that folks might get suspicious, but; it’s too young Clarke. We can tell the Grounders that someone in our party is sick, or whatever you want to say, but we can’t even think about starting it on solids until we have some milk, too.”

Clarke sighs. “I know you’re right, but this is just another complication. We don’t – we can’t really deal with this.” She looks up at him, and she’s suddenly so, so tired. “We don’t even know how far we are from Arkadia, it’s not like we can take it back there, and what if it gets sick?” The baby fusses a little, and Clarke forces herself to take a deep breath. “It’s – god, I feel so awful, Bellamy, but if I’d known, I don’t think I would have picked it up.”

When she looks back at him, she expects to see criticism in his eyes. “I’m the one who mentioned leaving it behind, Clarke. You’ll get no argument from me over how inconvenient it is. But – what else can we do?” he asks helplessly.

Clarke shrugs, biting back the first frustrated tears. She pets the baby’s head and knows, even though she doesn’t want to be responsible for yet another thing, that there’s no way she’d leave it behind.

She hears Bellamy sigh heavily. “I’ll try taking it for a little bit, if you want to rest,” he says. When she looks up at him in reproach, he gives her a lopsided grin. “You’re the only one who carried a baby for most of the day. You can get some more rest,” he says. “Besides, it should get used to being handled by the rest of us, not just you.”

Clarke raises an eyebrow at that, but she passes the baby to him, waits for it to start wailing. Instead, it keeps sucking on the cloth, looking up at Bellamy with wide eyes. Clarke laughs a little. “I knew babies liked you,” she teases.

\--

Clarke rests for a little bit, just dozing, one ear always listening for the baby, or for noises that would alert them to a problem. When Miller calls out for dinner, she wanders closer to the fire, grateful for the warmth, and for the smell of real food. It might just be ration packs with a little bit of whatever they’ve foraged along their way, but it’s still food, and she’s suddenly ravenous.

When she looks across the fire, Bellamy’s got the baby rigged into some kind of sling across his chest, the baby’s head resting against where his heart is, and the sight of it tugs at Clarke in an unexpected way. “Anything to report?” she asks, nodding at the baby.

“Well, it’s a girl,” he says, smiling a little. “She’s got a decent diaper on her, although I don’t know how long we’re going to make it on just one diaper.”

“Please tell me you didn’t name her,” Clarke groans, already anticipating a name that’s entirely too much for such a tiny thing.

Miller and Bryan laugh in the background, and Bellamy manages to look put upon. “I – no, I didn’t name her,” he says, before lapsing back into a grin. “Naming things means you’re attached, Clarke.”

She looks at him, drops her gaze to the sling, and looks back at him. “And this is what you’d call not attached?” she asks dryly.

“Bellamy doesn’t do _not attached_ ,” Miller says. “Have you even met him?”

Clarke snorts. “Are we just going to call it ‘the baby’ for now, then?”

“Well, it sounds like my naming rights are being voted down, so until someone comes up with something – “ he shrugs.

After they finish eating and clean up, Clarke offers to take first watch. Bellamy shows her how to get the sling wrapped around her body, and she sits quietly next to the fire while the others settle down for the night. The baby shifts sleepily against her, and she pets the downy fuzz on the top of her head, thinking about why she might have been abandoned. Having a baby when the world is ending seems terrifying, she can admit, but haven’t the Grounders constantly been facing the end of the world?

Her shift goes surprisingly quickly, and when Miller gently taps her shoulder, she smiles up at him gratefully. When she stands, Miller offers to take the baby, but she shakes her head. “I’ll take her back to sleep with me,” she says, and the softness in her voice isn’t just the product of the late hour. Miller gives her a quick smile, then turns to watch.

The baby functionally sleeps through the night, and that, more than anything, is what worries Clarke. At this age, she thinks, most babies don’t sleep through the night so effectively. That it did – she’s worried it’s not getting enough food, that it hasn’t been getting enough food, even before they found her.

\--

Fortunately, the next morning starts off with the baby’s cries, and as much as it’s a jolt to Clarke to try and remember everything that’s happened and figure out why there’s a fussy baby attached to her, she’s nevertheless relieved to hear the baby crying, particularly once she stops feeling disoriented.

The baby keeps wailing as Clarke tries to get herself upright, and she’s struck once again by how _awkward_ it is to be carrying this extra weight, and thinks again of how on earth her ancestors did this for so many millennia. And, when Miller extends his hands to help her up, she grabs them appreciatively. When he takes the baby from her and starts cooing at it, she thinks she might fall over from how cute it is. She walks over to the fire with a faint feeling of bemusement, and quickly eats some of the leftovers from last night before turning to Bellamy.

“Have you had any other ideas about how to feed her?” she asks. “She was so quiet through the night, and I’m worried she hasn’t had enough to eat for a while, now.”

Bellamy sobers at the thought, his eyebrows drawing together. “She didn’t look too thin when I changed her, but my only reference is Octavia, and I’m not sure that’s the best basis of judgment,” he says, and sighs, rubbing at his chin. The bruises and cuts have healed over, but she’s not surprised that the memory lingers.

“I still think finding a Grounder camp is our best option,” he says, and pauses. “If we can’t do that, how long do you think she can manage on water?”

Clarke’s face is bleak when he looks over at her, and the expression worries him. “If I’m right, and she’s already malnourished? Not too long. If we can keep her hydrated, she can probably make it back to camp, but I’m not sure what the consequences will be.” She worries her lip, thinking. “Worse comes to worst, I think we could do a very dilute mixture of what we’re eating, but it’s not going to be the best option, and it’s not going to be easy.” 

Bellamy looks at her, gives her a crooked smile. “When has it ever been easy?”

Clarke huffs a laugh. “Fair enough,” she says. “In the mean time, what’s it looking like in terms of finding the reactor?”

\--

The next two days follow much of the same pattern; they all take shifts with the baby, although Clarke spends the most time with her. They do start giving her a mixture of water and their food, although it’s clear that it’s not the best solution. The baby gets increasingly fussy when they do that, and Clarke can only assume her digestion isn’t developed enough to handle it, but the baby also seems to gain a little weight, and she guesses that the tradeoffs are worth it.

Still, it’s not the easiest thing, walking with a fussy baby in unknown territory. Clarke feels like she’s constantly looking over her shoulder, and Bellamy’s more snappish, his tension radiating out to everyone else. Still, when he holds the baby, he seems to relax, and he takes her from Clarke with a gentle care that makes her ache, just a little.

Within two days, they finally find the reactor. The good news is that they aren’t subtle, so when they’re close, it’s generally obvious. The bad news is that out of the blue, Bellamy decides that it’s too risky for Clarke to take the baby into the reactor, and this sets off a hushed argument between the two of them. 

“Isn’t the risk of radiation too high for her?” he asks. 

“She’s already _here_ , Bellamy. She already lives on a planet where nuclear reactors are melting down. It can’t possibly be that much worse for her to go in so I can at least _help_.” She hisses, bouncing to keep the baby from waking.

“But you could at least wait outside, so that if anything goes wrong, I know the two of you are okay,” he whispers back.

“And what, be vulnerable to anything that’s lurking out here, up to and including her enraged parents? I’m a good shot, Bellamy, but I can’t defend myself and her as well as I can if it was just me!” And that, for the first time, is when Clarke realizes that she’s _afraid_. There have been few times since they landed on Earth that she hasn’t been able to reason her way, or decide her way through a situation using a certain degree of brashness. What’s changed now is that she’s had this baby for all of three days, and she feels the need to protect it, the need to keep it safe from as much as possible, and that means keeping _herself_ safe. She hasn’t had much of a sense of self-perseveration in the last year or so, but now – now it matters what happens to her, and it matters what happens to the rest of them. If something goes wrong in the reactor and she’s outside, she won’t make it back to the rover by herself.

It takes her a split-second to think this all through, and the sigh she takes shakes her body, heaving with the implications. Bellamy rests his hand on her arm, worry coloring his features. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“I will be,” she answers. “But, look. It’s not just about her. I won’t make it with her back to the rover if you, Miller, and Bryan die. I don’t think anything’s going to go wrong,” she says, raising a hand to forestall his argument. “But if it does, I’d rather it takes us all, because I can’t defend her well enough on my own.” She looks up at him, sees him thinking through the realization she’s just had. “Please, Bellamy. It’s not going to be any worse for her than anything else that’s already happened.”

He closes his eyes, breathes deeply. “Okay,” he says at last. “It’s your call. If this is what you think is best, I’ll stand with you on it.”

She breathes a quiet sigh of relief. She’s relieved not just because Bellamy agrees with her, but because they’re _trusting_ each other again, and it feels monumental. She wants to hug him, but she can’t with the baby in her arms, so she lays her hand on his arm, just as he had moments ago. “Thank you,” she says, trying to convey everything into those two simple words. He meets her eyes, nods, and turns back to Miller and Bryan, talking them through everything.

\--

As with all the other reactors, powering this one down is fairly simple. It’s not that she’s not concerned, especially since she _is_ carrying the baby with her, but it’s easy enough to hold her gun at her side while keeping her other hand on the baby’s back, and if it seems oxymoronic, well, this is what Earth has been all about, right?

Miller and Bryan take off to the control room to shut everything down while she and Bellamy explore and look for anything useful. They occasionally find some tech, and anything that isn’t obviously broken they usually try and take back to Raven to see if she can use it for anything. Other than that, though, they rarely find anything of use, and this reactor is no exception. 

Clarke sighs and glances over at Bellamy. “I guess it was too much to hope for some formula, huh?” she asks, a wry smile playing at her lips.

Bellamy grins back at her, but stays quiet, shoving some wiring into his pack. Clarke glances down at the baby, though she knew from the steady breaths that the baby was asleep. They’ve had her for almost a week but haven’t named her. It’s possible that naming her is a little too real, a little too much like deciding to keep her, and Clarke isn’t sure that she’s the best person to keep the baby, anyway. There are probably people better equipped back at camp, so she’s trying not to get too attached, but when one of the men hold her instead, her body seems to miss the weight of her, and it’s something she’s not ready to deal with. Not yet, at least.

As soon as Bellamy finishes stuffing the wiring into his (too-full, she notices) pack, they head outside to rendezvous with Miller and Bryan. When they get out into the late-fall light, Miller and Bryan are already waiting, talking easily with each other.

“All done?” Bellamy asks, shrugging into his pack more securely.

“Yup,” Miller says. “No problems whatsoever.”

It strikes Clarke that, aside from the baby, this is the easiest problem they’ve encountered on Earth, and she sends up a quiet thank you that something is _finally_ going right, that something is finally easy. Everything else they’ve ever encountered has been genuinely awful at every step, and to have this one thing go well is a relief. She doesn’t want to get too excited about it, because there’s a chance that they others haven’t been able to reduce the threat of the reactors enough, but she’s cautiously optimistic that maybe, just maybe, they’ll make it.

\--

The trek back to the rover goes as well as she could possibly imagine. The baby still isn’t gaining weight, but Bellamy doesn’t think she’s losing any, either, and it seems like she’s developing a level of comfort with everyone in their group, although Clarke still carries her most often. She can feel that carrying the baby and tending to her is wearing her down a little, but it’s only a few days walk back to the rover, and then they’ll be home soon after that, and maybe she can pass the baby off to someone, or at least get some more help.

It’s only as they reach the rover and get back to camp that Clarke starts to get fidgety, wondering about the other reactors, wondering about how to explain the baby. Her mother is undoubtedly going to have questions, and while Clarke thinks that Abby will be supportive, she nevertheless feels a sense of unease about everything that’s in the near future. The baby either hates the rover, or is picking up on Clarke’s unease, too, because she spends much of the drive whimpering and fussing, and Clarke spends most of her time rocking the baby and trying not to lose her mind in the confined space.

When they make it back to camp, Bellamy reaches in and helps Clarke down. She’s still not used to the extra weight on her front, and the last thing she wants is to somehow fall and hurt the baby now that they’re finally back with a doctor who can actually help them figure out how to get her the proper nutrients and make sure she’s otherwise generally healthy.

Kane meets them at the gate, and glances between Clarke and the baby and Bellamy for a few seconds before eventually cracking a joke. “Well, Clarke, I wasn’t aware you were pregnant when you left, and it seems like it’s a bit too soon for you to have gotten pregnant and delivered on the road, so – “ he cuts himself off, offers than a tight smile. “I’m sure you have an interesting story to tell. Let’s get you inside. I assume you want to go see Abby?” he asks over his shoulder.

Clarke nods. “Probably the sooner the better,” she agrees.

Marcus nods. “All right. She was in the medbay the last time I saw her. Bellamy, Miller, Bryan – come with me and debrief, please.” 

Clarke turns to go, but pauses when she hears Bellamy say, “Actually, sir, if it’s okay, I’ll go with Clarke.” She feels a small smile play at the corners of her lips, a feeling of warmth at his support.

Marcus pauses, and Clarke doesn’t turn around to see the look he must be giving Bellamy, but she’s sure it’s worth its weight in words, one way or another. “If Miller and Bryan can debrief me,” he says, waits for Bellamy.

“They can, sir. I can follow up with you after meeting with Dr. Griffin.”

“Very well. See you shortly,” Marcus says, and then Clarke can feel the warmth of Bellamy at her back, and for just a second, she thinks of leaning slightly against him.

“Thanks,” she says, smiling up at him.

“I know you’ve got it,” he says easily. “Still, I’d like to hear what your mom thinks.”

To no one’s surprise, Abby Griffin is not mollified when she realizes the baby cannot possibly be her daughter’s biological offspring. As she’s taking the baby from Clarke, she’s already muttering “This was completely irresponsible, we don’t have anyone to care for a baby, what on _earth_ were you two thinking,” and while Clarke’s annoyed by the thought that she should have _left_ the baby, seeing her mom bounce a baby is actually – cute.

Still, the baby starts crying in short order, and Abby looks over at Clarke and Bellamy. “What have you been feeding her?”

They exchange a look. “We’ve been soaking some of our food in water and giving it to her,” Clarke sighs. “I _know_ it’s not the best, but I wasn’t about to run around trying to find a nanny goat, or god forbid, a friendly Grounder village to try and get her milk.”

Abby gives her a sharp look, but closes her mouth. “Well, that’s better than just water,” she says, and goes back to bouncing the baby. “Does it – she,” she corrects herself, checking the baby’s diaper quickly, “always cry so much?”

Clarke sees Bellamy covering a smirk out of the corner of her eye, and fights the smile on her own face. “She’s gotten fairly used to the four of us handling her, but she might not be thrilled about being held by a new person,” she says. 

Abby hmphs a little bit before going back to her exam. They don’t have a scale set up, so there’s no easy way to weigh her, but Clarke can see that she looks smaller than she should, and as much as she isn’t sure she wants permanent responsibility of the baby, it doesn’t keep her from worrying. “I know she’s too young for human food, but I wasn’t sure what else to do. Do you think she’s okay?”

At Clarke’s obvious concern, Abby finally softens. “I think you did the best you could,” she says, cradling the baby a little closer. “We’ll figure out something better now that she’s at camp with us, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage, aside from some hunger. She might have some trouble going back on milk at first, but I think she’ll be fine.” She looks at Clarke and Bellamy. “What do you want to do about her ongoing care?”

She and Bellamy exchange another glance, and Clarke sighs. “I don’t know yet,” she answers, still looking at Bellamy. He nods, a reassurance, and she feels some of the weight lift from her shoulders. She turns back to face her mother. “If we can find someone around camp who wants her, that might be the best thing, but until then, if you can come up with a food source for her, I’ll keep taking care of her,” she decides. Bellamy places his hand at her back, and his unspoken support settles Clarke in her decision.

Abby nods, watching the exchange between Clarke and Bellamy. “I’ll check with some people and see what our options are. If nothing else, we might be able to engineer something like formula, or we might even have some. But I think it’s possible we could find a milk source. In the mean time, let’s get her outfitted a bit better and start figuring out some logistics. 

Watching her mother carry the baby, starting to gather items and rattle off a list to Clarke – it should feel overwhelming, but instead, Clarke just feels a surge of relief. For the first time in a long time, she has two of her favorite people on her side, and if it isn’t how she’d maybe wanted Bellamy and her mother to come to peace with each other, and with her, she can help but feel a little settled.

\--

As much as the baby seems to take being in a new place in stride, it’s actually Clarke who feels the most strain being back in camp. The first thing that happens is that, although she still has support from many sides, she’s really on her own for the first time since she found the baby. She’s had Miller, Bryan, and most of all, Bellamy to help her in the past week or so; now, back at camp, they’re all back at their respective duties, including Clarke. This means that she’s now working with a baby strapped to her chest; Abby takes her when they have opposite shifts in the medbay, or when she isn’t supervising something else, but Clarke’s duties around camp are so amorphous these days that it almost makes the most sense for her to keep the baby with her. Still, she can feel the extra drain on her body, in particular, from carrying the baby and multitasking.

The bigger change is at night. She’s used to being up in shifts for watch, but when she’s on watch, she’s alert for the slightest hint of trouble. Being on her own for six months taught her nothing if not watchfulness; if she was careless, she was dead. When she’s not on a trip and needed on watch, however, she’s used to getting several hours of sleep at a stretch, and now that she’s back in the closest thing they have to civilization, her body seems to demand more rest. The problem, of course, is that the baby demands nighttime feedings, and not that Clarke would deprive her anyway, but she can feel an extra alertness to the baby’s needs at night because she’s so worried about the possibility of malnutrition.

So, while it’s not uncommon for her to be a little scatterbrained, or to make some careless choices, she feels like she’s both of those things even more, now. The good news is that almost all of the teams have reported back, and the threat of nuclear meltdown and the apocalypse has abated quite a bit. It means that the number of imminent life and death decisions she might be making on a daily decision has dropped significantly. It also means, however, that diplomacy with the other clans has to become a priority, and she no longer feels lucid enough to be a valuable contributor.

It’s only a few days in before she starts falling asleep during one of these meetings, the baby sleeping peacefully against her chest, that Bellamy notices and intervenes.

After the meeting dissolves with some grumbling on everyone’s part, he takes her to the side and confronts her. “Okay,” he starts, arms crossed over his chest. “How much sleep are you getting?”

Since Clarke was expecting a conversation more related to the meeting, or to – anything else, really, it takes her a minute to gather her thoughts. “Some?” she offers tentatively, wincing internally at the lecture she can feel coming.

Bellamy sighs, and she can hear his hands drop to his sides. “I know you offered to take responsibility for the baby for now, Clarke, but you can’t run yourself ragged trying to do that and everything else by yourself.”

“I’m not _trying_ to,” she huffs. “I just – there’s a lot going on, as usual, and now I’m taking care of the baby, too. It wasn’t really a conscious decision,” she says, glancing down at the sleeping figure. “And I’m not really sure what else to do about the sleeping situation. She needs feeding through the night, and that just means less sleep for me. It’s not that I can’t deal, it’s just – “ she pauses, grimaces. “I’m adjusting,” she says.

Bellamy snorts. “If by adjusting, you mean falling asleep during diplomatic negotiations, then yes, you’re adjusting beautifully,” he says. When he sees the frustrated look on Clarke’s face, he sighs. “Okay, the baby needs to eat at night, and you need some more sleep. It sounds like you just need another person to help cover some of the night shifts, right?”

Clarke shrugs. “I don’t really like asking anyone else to wander around like a zombie. It seems like it’s better to keep that problem more concentrated.”

“Well, that’s a nice effort at martyrdom, as usual, but one other person won’t be too affected, right?” he asks. “The baby likes me, you and I get on fine; I’ll come help out at nights.” 

Clarke looks up at him in surprise, and as she looks at him, she thinks that he looks uncomfortably casual about the whole thing, as though he’s forcing himself to be relaxed about the whole thing. It’s charming, more than anything else, and she ducks her head to hide a small smile. “Really, it’s not a big deal. I’ll get used to it,” she offers. “You’re busy with plenty of other things.”

“Nope. We’re not arguing on this one. You can take my help, or you can find someone else, but if nighttime feedings are the biggest problem, you and I both know that I can deal with that.” He softens, reaches for the baby. “Plus, I miss her, a little. I know I see you both around camp, but it’s not the same as it was.”

Clarke’s heart turns over in her chest, and she sighs. “Okay. Thank you,” she adds. “You coming to my place, then?”

“I assume that’s easier, since all of her stuff is there, right?” he shrugs. “I’ll find you at dinner and we can sort everything out.”

He turns to go, and Clarke grabs his arm before he can make it too far. “Really, Bellamy. Thank you.” She smiles at him, feels a little amusement when he rubs at the back of his neck.

“It’s not problem,” he says gruffly, before giving her a small smile and heading out.

\--

The first night is – awkward, to say the least. Clarke feels strangely uncomfortable walking back to her small cabin with Bellamy, and feels even stranger the more speculative looks they get. Still, she thinks it would be more uncomfortable to address the elephant in the room, so she does what she does best: blazes ahead and ignores anything but the most immediate issue.

What’s really not ideal is that she doesn’t have a good place for Bellamy to sleep. The baby has a little wooden crate that Raven rigged up for her on the ground, and Clarke has her narrow mattress, but either she and Bellamy share, or he sleeps on his bedroll on the floor. Clarke looks around for a bit, staunchly avoiding eye contact for a minute before looking back at Bellamy.

He’s flushing a little around his ears, barely visible, but she can still tell, and it’s almost enough to make her feel better about the situation. Still, he’s the one to offer, “I’ll sleep on my bedroll tonight, and maybe we can figure out something more long term after that?” he asks. “I’m assuming you need more than one night’s help,” he says wryly.

“I’ll take whatever you’ll give,” she says, relief coursing through her at Bellamy’s willingness to help. “I’m also perfectly happy to sleep on my bedroll, if you’d like the bed?”

He shakes his head. “Not tonight. The point of tonight is that you need to get some more sleep. I’ll take the floor, you sleep. Just show me where things are and I’ll cover it tonight.”

It’s a sign of how deliriously tired Clarke is that all she wants to do is kiss him in relief, and while kissing Bellamy is not something Clarke is _not_ interested in, it’s also not something she’s up for _right now_ , under these circumstances. “I’m sure I’ll still wake up,” she starts, before Bellamy cuts her off.

“If you do, you do. But if you can sleep through the night, all the better. I’ve been getting 8 hour stretches since we got back, but you haven’t. So – what’s she doing for food?”

And as Clarke walks him through the watery milk mixture her mother has concocted from Clarke-isn’t-quite-sure-what, she can feel the exhaustion pulling at her. Bellamy must notice, because as soon as he feels like he has a grasp on everything, he shoos her off to bed, and takes the baby in her sling to sit outside and enjoy the sunset. 

Clarke is asleep before she even gets to her bed, and, true to Bellamy’s word, she sleeps through the night.

\--

It gets easier after that, undoubtedly. It’s still awkward for the first week or so, and gets awkward again when Bellamy brings in his own mattress and sets up camp more permanently. They’re not close enough to be sharing bed space directly, but suddenly there’s another person walking around her cabin all the time, another person’s clothing and few belongings, and it’s not that she _minds_ , it’s Bellamy, for heaven’s sake, and she gets so much more sleep now, but it also feels – intimate in a way that she wasn’t expecting.

Still, they’re often on different schedules, Bellamy working with the guard, Clarke in the medbay and doing other work around camp. Clarke takes the baby most days, but sometimes her mom chips in, and even Raven takes the baby for a few hours a couple of times a week. She’s got a crib rigged in her workspace so she doesn’t have to carry the baby much and put additional pressure on her knee, but when Clarke stops in, she often hears Raven explaining whatever she’s working on to the baby, and it makes her smile every time.

It’s several weeks into her arrangement with Bellamy that she stops in to collect the baby from Raven when Raven decides to confront her. Clarke, to some extent, is just grateful that it’s taken her this long, and that Octavia still hasn’t been seen much so she’s not getting this talk from _her_.

“So, how long are we going to keep calling her ‘the baby’?” Raven asks, making air quotes around the wrench she’s carrying. “She’s not going anywhere, right?”

 

Clarke sighs. It’s not that she hasn’t been thinking about it, but the original plan was to see if someone wanted to adopt the baby, not for her to keep her. It’s why she’s been purposefully not naming her. But, as time goes on, it seems less and less likely that someone else is going to adopt her, and that scares Clarke as much as anything else. “I was waiting,” she says, finally. There’s a wrench in her gut as she says it, but, “I’m still not sure if I’m keeping her, or if she might ultimately go live with someone else.”

Raven pauses what she’s doing to look at Clarke in disbelief. “Seriously? No one’s stepping forward to adopt her because everyone assumes she’s yours. You might have been doing this song and dance of someone else adopting her, but it’s not like you’ve been trying very hard to find her another family.”

Clarke startles. “I sort of assumed that someone would step forward, I guess,” she says, and instantly realizes how naïve it sounds. They’re on the ground, yes, but it doesn’t mean people are adjusted to the idea of having more than one child. She bites her lip. “I assumed people knew that I wasn’t certain of keeping her. That you, and my mom, and Bellamy were talking her up to people who might be interested.”

Raven huffs a laugh. “I mean, yeah, Bellamy might be talking her up, but – “ she shrugs. “It’s not like he’s said he’s committed to keeping her, either, but, Clarke, he’s _living_ with you. He wears her around camp. It just – seems like a decision has been made.”

The part of Clarke that ran away when she pulled the lever and irradiated Mount Weather, the part of Clarke that stood defiantly next to Lexa after being made the thirteenth clan – that part of Clarke wants to snap back and say that she hasn’t made any such decision. But it’s Raven, someone she loves, who tells her the truth because she knows she can handle it. So instead of snapping, she presses her lips together. “I guess…” she trails off. “I haven’t made a conscious decision,” she answers slowly.

Raven walks over to her, claps a hand on her shoulder. “Well, right now, it actually looks like we have a chance in hell at surviving down here, so – maybe it’s time to start making some decisions, start living.” She meets Clarke’s eyes, and Clarke is relieved to see no judgment there, just the steady brightness of Raven. Clarke smiles, hugs her briefly, and Raven laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Take the kiddo and scram.”

The thing is, Clarke _does_ have thinking to do, and she wants to do it alone, if she can. So, she swings the baby by the medbay, drops her off with Abby, and tells Abby she’s going for a walk. Then, because her conversation with Raven made her nothing if not more aware of her increasing obligations, on her way out, she stops by to check in with Bellamy. When she tells him she’s going for a walk, his brow furrows ever-so-slightly, and for once, she doesn’t resist the temptation to smooth it out, pressing the pads of her fingers gently into the crease above his nose. He looks dumbfounded, and she glances back down, hiding her smile, before she pats her walkie and tells him she’ll be back for dinner.

She doesn’t have a favorite spot outside of camp, exactly; there are places she avoids, memories of her own, and things Bellamy has told her that she wants no part of, but there is a small grove of trees that she likes, and she’s climbed one to watch the sunset before she even really thinks about it.

As she watches the sun slowly begin its descent towards the horizon, she thinks that it’s not just her that has to make a decision; Bellamy is almost as invested in the baby as she is, but she can’t entirely imagine the conversation they need to have. There’s a surface level conversation there, of “do we keep going”, but there’s an underlying conversation there, one that she’s more afraid of, one that has to do with her clearing his brow just now, of him gently waking her in the night, staying up with her while she feeds the baby, of him snoring softly just feet away from her, the way they’re rebuilding each other in this new world, the one that has so many fewer threats than they’ve ever faced together.

They’re two different conversations, but they’re the same conversation, because she doesn’t think she can do this without him, and how are you supposed to ask someone to continue to play house without actually trying a relationship? But how do you try a relationship when you’ve already decided to take on a child?

She shakes her head, clearing the thoughts for the moment. What she knows is that, as panicked as she feels by the idea of keeping the baby, she can’t imagine giving it to anyone else. She can imagine another world where they found another family at this point, and where the baby cried at night, and she cried at night missing the baby, and maybe they’d grow apart, or maybe she’d never stop feeling like she’d lost a piece of her heart. And she can’t stomach that reality, when it comes down to it, so she’ll take the chaos of having a baby, one she didn’t plan for.

\--

She stalls for a few days, waiting to see if Bellamy might take initiative. When he doesn’t, when it’s been three days and the certainty in her heart has only grown, she knows it’s time to do something.

She puts the baby down that night, and after smoothing her hair back and tucking her blanket tighter around her, she goes to find Bellamy sitting on his mattress, engrossed in the most recent book he’s found. He has his hand tangled in his hair, and he’s squinting at the pages. She knows he needs glasses, but they’ve yet to find a pair that works for him, and for now, he keeps reading like this, no doubt giving himself headaches.

When he catches her watching him, he gives her a slight smile, one that warms her to her toes. She pushes off the doorframe and comes closer, finally asking, “Can I sit?”

He nods, folds over the page in his book, and moves the blankets so she has a comfortable place to sit. She hesitates for a minute, and he must feel the tension in her back, as close as she’s sitting to him, and he folds one arm around her, letting her sink her head against his shoulder. “What is it?” he asks, petting at the ends of her hair.

She stays quiet for a minute, reveling in the feel of him playing with her hair. If this goes right, she’s going to get that forever, she’ll be able to feel this happy and content, and for the first time in a long time, she feels light inside, the possibility of this, the true tangibility of it lighting her from within.

“No one’s offering to take the baby,” she says, and she feels Bellamy still beside her. He doesn’t say anything, and she continues, filling the silence. “I – I wanted her to have a good home, to have people who care for her.” She sighs. “I’m making this sound like a burden, and I don’t mean that. I _want_ to keep her.”

She can feel when he relaxes beside her, when he goes back to playing with her hair. She turns in his hold, stilling his hands. She meets his eyes for a moment, and the look there – part hope, part desire, part longing – makes her duck her head to hide her smile again. When her nose meets the junction of his neck and shoulder, the spot she’s made her home, he shudders against her ever so slightly.

“I want to keep you both,” she mumbles into his neck, her lips brushing against the skin. He tugs gently at her hair, pulling her back.

“Say it again?” he asks. He’s smiling like he can’t believe what she’s saying, is desperate to believe what she’s saying. 

She can’t help the silly smile that stretches across her face. “I want to keep you both. I want to pick a name for her with you. I want us to be a family – “

She’s cut off when he brushes his lips against hers. He pulls back briefly, like he’s checking to make sure it’s okay, and she pulls him back instantly, feeling the smile on his lips and relishing in the knowledge that everyone was right, he wants this as much as she does. Reveling in the fact that _she_ makes him happy, that they’re going to be a family (and maybe they already were, the two of them and the remaining hundred, but this – this is going to be different. This is him being hers, and her being his, and they’ve been crawling towards this for so long, but they’re _here_ , _now_ , and it’s all she can think about, a future, a _good_ future with him by her side, no questions asked).

They’re both too tired and too elated to take it any further that night, but when he crawls into bed beside her, pulling her flush against his chest – she knows she’s home, and more than that, she knows that home has a future.


End file.
